Making use of web technology

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Making use of web technology

• Martin White
• Managing Director, Intranet Focus Ltd. UK
• Martin.White_at_intranetfocus.com
• Umbrella 2003

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Agenda

• Introduction
• Blogs
• Wikis
• Content Management
• Web services

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Blogs
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Weblogs (aka Blogs)

• A blog (weblog) is a set of web pages compiled
  and presented in chronological order.
• They are usually compiled using blog-specific
  content management software
• No HTML skills required!
• Easy to include hyperlinks
• Can be archived in categories
• Some blogs provide feedback
• RSS feeds can also be provided

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Blog software

• Many of the software packages are open-source
  and/or require payment of only a nominal fee
• Some software packages are now starting to charge
  licence fees, but even then the cost is around
  100
• Radio Userland www.radio.userland.com
• Greymatter www.noahgrey.com/greysoft
• Movable Type www.moveabletype.org
• Blogger www.blogger.com (now Google)
• Blog www.farook.org

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Applications

• Department newsletters
• Internal to complement an intranet
• External as current awareness
• Communities of practice
• Project management
• Alternative to email groups for internal
  announcements
• Add value to a web site

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Some to start with

• Excited Utterances (KM in Law firms)
• http//www.excitedutterances.blogspot.com/
• Column Two (KM, CM, Intranets)
• http//www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/index.html
• Information Research
• http//www.free-conversant.com/irweblog/
• Information architecture
• http//iaslash.org/
• Gurteen Knowledge-Log
• www.gurteen.com

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Resources

• Weblog Compendium http//www.lights.com/weblogs/
• Peter Scotts Library Blog
• http//blog.xrefer.com/peter.html
• Blog Users Ring
• http//home.earthlink.net/sigmar01/blogusers/

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Blogs a summary

• Features
• Very inexpensive
• Easy to use
• Able to embed hyperlinks
• Can offer comment facilities
• Issues
• Chronological sequence is inflexible
• Need constant content addition

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Wikis and Twiki
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Wikis

• From Wiki-wiki, which is Hawaiian for Quick
• Wiki is a piece of server software that allows
  users to freely create and edit Web page content
  using any Web browser.
• Invented by Ward Cunningham in 1994/1995
• http//c2.com/cgi/wiki?WardCunningham
• Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text
  syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks
  between internal pages on the fly.
• Wiki is unusual among group communication
  mechanisms in that it allows the organization of
  contributions to be edited in addition to the
  content itself.

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Applications

• Communities of practice
• Any form of collaborative working
• Development of FAQs
• Development of standards
• Just about anything that needs to be developed on
  a collaborative and incremental basis

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TWiki

• A development of Wikis that provides a better
  audit trail of changes
• Developed by Peter Thoeny in 1998
• http//twiki.org/
• TWiki is a cgi-bin script written in Perl. It
  reads a text file, hyperlinks it and converts it
  to HTML on the fly.
• TWiki is Distributed under a General Public
  Licence. The Perl CGI source code, templates and
  documentation is available for free.

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Twiki applications

• As a knowledge base and FAQ system.
• To design and document software projects.
• To track issues (i.e. bugs) and features.
• As a document management tool.
• To collaborate on common goals, i.e. the Helsinki
  Institute of Physics Technology Programme web
  portal.
• As a software archive
• As a company internal message board, i.e. for job
  listings.

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Content management
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Why the current interest?

• There are a number of reasons why content
  management has come centre stage
• Reductions in staff levels throughout the
  organisation more to do with fewer staff
• Webmaster centralised publishing model does not
  scale for intranets
• Extranets add an additional layer of complexity
• Increasing value of unstructured content, most of
  which is now digital
• Changes in business requirements take too long to
  be implemented when using the FrontPage
  flat-file approach to an intranet/web site
• Multiple delivery channels (paper, web, wireless
  etc)

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Content management the benefits

• Reducing the levels of skill, training, support
  and staff time required to contribute content
  from existing business processes
• Enabling information maintenance to be devolved
  without compromising content quality
• Providing presentational consistency by
  separating content from design
• Enabling an information architecture to be
  aligned with business needs
• Enhancing content retrieval through metadata and
  linking
• Supporting multiple distribution channels with
  minimal staff modification of the master document

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Content management software

• The key elements of a CMS application are
• Content creation through templates, which require
  no technical expertise
• Content review supported by work-flow
• Content versioning closely managed
• Content tagged and held in a repository
• Content repurposed for delivery to specific
  audiences
• Site design framework independent of content
  structure
• Comprehensive administration functions

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The technology options for content management

• Build each page using FrontPage, Dream Weaver or
  other page authoring software
• Not scalable
• Very difficult to make global changes to content
  or design
• HTML expertise required
• Inflexible information architecture
• Virtually impossible to integrate with other
  applications
• Difficult to administer
• Limited metadata tagging
• High cost per page created

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The technology options for content management

• Internally developed by IT department
• IT departments tend to specialise in highly
  structured data and databases
• Requires specialist knowledge of CMS requirements
• Support dependent on key members of staff
• Knock-on impact on the development of other IT
  applications
• Application enhancement subject to there being
  ongoing investment in the development process

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The technology options for content management

• Use open-source content management software, such
  as Zope, Midgard, OpenCMS
• Although specifically designed for CM
  applications considerable development work
  remains to be carried out
• Usually run on a Unix platform, so not an option
  for Microsoft/IBM environments
• Limited documentation
• Although the software is free, support can be
  expensive
• Dependent on key staff and IT dept.

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The technology options for content management

• Purchase a commercial content management
  application
• Wide range of vendors all apparently offering the
  same functionality
• Selection and procurement will be lengthy and
  costly
• Long-term stability of some vendors open to
  question
• Product will still need to be customised
• High direct cost
• Integration and migration can be problem areas

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CMS selection some warnings!

• CMS selection cannot be accomplished in the basis
  of a review of product literature or a
  demonstration by a salesman
• It cannot be accomplished in a few weeks
• It cannot be procured by any one single
  department
• It is likely to be the only application since
  e-mail and Microsoft Office that is rolled out to
  every desktop
• It will certainly change staff relationships and
  organisational culture
• It will help to restructure existing business
  processes, and create new/replacement processes

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Implementation schedules

• Vendors have a habit of saying that they can
  implement the application in four weeks, or some
  such time frame
• This is unlikely to happen in most cases. Ask
  them what percentage of projects have been
  implemented in this time frame
• It is essential to do a critical path analysis,
  as key members of staff may be away at the wrong
  time, other projects (not necessarily IT) may
  also be underway
• There will always be unforeseen problems!

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Migration

• There will usually be a substantial number of
  pages from existing sites that need to added to
  the new site.
• It is not just a question of transferring the
  content of the pages, but also adding and/or
  modifying metadata tags
• Each vendor has their own approach to this
  migration, and the extent to which the migration
  process can be automated depends very heavily on
  the quality of the current file/directory
  structures
• In the end there will be an unquantifiable amount
  of manual work involved in the migration process.
  

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Resources

• Content Management Bible, Bob Boiko, Hungry Minds
  Inc. New York, 2002
• Content Management Systems, Dave Addey, James
  Ellis, Phil Suh and David Thiemecke. Glasshaus,
  London, 2002
• CMS Metatorial Planner. Metatorial Services Inc.
  www.metatorial.com
• Content Management Requirements Toolkit. Step Two
  Designs Pty Ltd. www steptwo.com.au
• CMS Report. www.cmswatch.com
• Articles by the author in the Behind the Firewall
  column in EContent www.econtentmag.com
• http//cms-list.org/

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Web services

• Web services are a vision of a fully integrated
  computing network that include PCs, servers,
  handheld devices, programs, applications and
  network equipment, all working together.
• This network can perform distributed computation
  with the best-matched device for the task and
  deliver the information on a timely basis in the
  form needed by the user.
• Best thought of as a macro that can access web
  resources and transfer selected elements to the
  home resource
• Will Microsoft (.Net) and IBM/Sun (J2EE) compete
  or complement each other

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Resources

• http//www.webservices.org/
• http//www.rds.com/doug/weblogs/webServicesStrateg
  ies/
• http//www.webservicesarchitect.com/
• http//www.microsoft.com/net/
• http//www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/
  
• http//wwws.sun.com/software/learnabout/webservice
  s/

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Questions?
Contact martin.white_at_intranetfocus.com